During last week’s Auburn Regional Alabama Launchpad startup pitch competition, six of 11 companies impressed industry professional judges enough to advance to the April 4 regional finals at the Alfa Pavilion at Auburn University’s Ag Heritage Park.
The prize for the competition on April 4 is $100,000 and an entry into this fall’s state competition.
Beyond Home Care, one of the six companies, is a personalized non-medical home care for the elderly and disabled, presented by Kelly Adams of Alexander City.
Tennibot, another one of the qualifying companies, is a robotic tennis ball collector, presented by of Haven Barnes of Auburn.
The third was FoPark, a simplified parking management system, presented by Sakthi Kandaswaamy and Parker Roan of Auburn.
MosesWeaver of Tuskegge presented Energy H2O, a company introducing an energetic, healthier bottled water.
Another company, InhiProt presented by Auburn University Harrison School of Pharmacy Professor Alexei Kisselev, posed a treatment idea for those suffering
The final company was NanoXort, presented by Tareq Anani and Barry Yeh of Auburn posing the development of safer contrast agents for MRIs.
“There’s a lot of companies in the Southeast doing innovative things, in general,” Barnes said. Barnes's teammate, Tennibot founder and CEO Haitham
Barnes, senior in software engineering, said competitions such as Launchpad provide his team a chance to get ideas from and network with others.
“This gives us the opportunity to see where other people are at and learn from their ideas,” Barnes said. “We have made great connections at these competitions—they were working on the kind of stuff that we needed, and vice-
The Auburn Regional Alabama Launchpad was presented by Harbert College’s Lowder Center for Family Business and Entrepreneurship, the City of Auburn, Auburn Research and Technology Foundation and the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama.
BBVA Compass served as the event’s title sponsor. The region is comprised of Lee, Tallapoosa, Macon, Chambers
Each team received 10 minutes to present their business ideas. The presentations were followed with questions from four judges including Boyd Stephens, founder of Netelysis, Frank Bratski, founder of ColumbusMakesIT!, Patrick Cox, president of B2 Partners LLC and John Marsh,
Stephens said the judges were looking for a few specifics when they asked each
“You can call it a business plan competition, or a pitching competition, but at the end of the day it’s: Can the idea make money?” Stephens said.
In order to move onto the next round, teams needed to have a firm foundation and a plan for growth.
“I look for a number of things: how cognizant they are of their market?” Stephens said. “How cognizant are they of their customers and do they have their ear to the ground on customer problems? Do they have a problem that’s worth solving? Do they have data to validate that? What I really spend time on are those financials. The financials are the blood of a business operation.”
Five other startups were present at the competition including Proximity Biosciences LLC, creating functional molecules used for therapeutics and diagnostics, presented by Joonyul Kim of Auburn. SoleLine LLC, a storage and display solution for footwear, presented by Berk Anadur, Gibson Wang and Frank Nguyen of Auburn.
Another startup present was
The final startup present was JC Golf Info, a
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